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Ġgantija and the Giantess Sansuna: The Gozo Temple Older Than Stonehenge

Writer: Alex van Terheyden
Alex van Terheyden
14 hours ago
9 min read

On a quiet plateau above the village of Xagħra, on the island of Gozo, stand two weathered temples that were already ancient when the first stones were raised at Stonehenge. Ġgantija means “the place of giants”, and Gozitans long believed that only a giant could have built it. It was the one site in Malta I had most wanted to see. If you are planning a wider trip, start with my Malta travel guide: knights, temples, Gozo and the grit as well as the limestone.


This is the fourth of my seven Malta deep-dives, following the Tarxien Temples. Watch the film first, then read on for the legend of Sansuna, the Victorians who uncovered the site, the questions it still raises, and current tickets and opening hours at the end.



A temple older than Stonehenge


I have visited Stonehenge dozens of times, five or six in the last year alone, and I still get blown away every time. So it means something when I say Ġgantija stopped me in my tracks. Visit Gozo dates its two structures to roughly 3600 to 3200 BC. English Heritage puts the first henge at Stonehenge at about 3000 BC, with the great stone circle raised around 2500 BC. Ġgantija is also older than the pyramids of Egypt.


For a long time it was described as the oldest building in Europe. Then came Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey, which is far older, so Ġgantija is now usually called the second-oldest surviving religious structure made by human hands. But Göbekli Tepe was buried and dug out. Ġgantija, the Xagħra local council notes, earned a Guinness entry as “the oldest free standing structures in the world”, and UNESCO ranks the Maltese temples among the earliest free-standing stone buildings anywhere.


Gozo and the road to Xagħra


I parked a couple of blocks away and walked up through lanes of whitewashed and honey-coloured houses. For a moment I could have been in the Netherlands or Mykonos. No: this is Gozo, Malta’s quieter, greener sister island, a short ferry ride from the north of the main island. The entrance is through a modern Interpretation Centre on the main road, and from there a path runs out across the plateau to the temples.


Before I had even reached the monument I found a stone with a carving that looked to me like a serpent. Snakes, animals and strange figures turn up on carved stones from Göbekli Tepe to Malta. Are they the work of related peoples? Speculation, of course, but that is what sites like this do to you. The visitor centre was so packed with school groups that I struggled to read the panels, though I still learned plenty.


Buried, forgotten — and saved


Ġgantija was not always free-standing in the open air. Like the Sphinx and so many monuments around the world, it lay half buried and neglected for centuries. Locals and travellers knew it was there: in the late eighteenth century the French artist Jean-Pierre Houël drew a plan that has proved remarkably accurate. Then, in 1827, according to Wikipedia, Colonel John Otto Bayer, the British lieutenant governor of Gozo, had the site cleared of debris. The Xagħra council says he did it at his own expense, and the street outside the park still bears his name.


The entrance passage of Ġgantija between giant limestone slabs, Xagħra, Gozo

The methods would make a modern archaeologist wince. The soil and finds were carted away without being properly examined, and our best picture of the site before clearance is a painting by the German artist Charles Frederick de Brocktorff. Afterwards the ruins fell into decay. Farmers had no use for them; trees grew through the stones and blocks were broken up or taken away. The remains were placed on Malta’s Antiquities List in 1925, UNESCO inscribed Ġgantija as a World Heritage Site in 1980, and in 1992 the listing was extended to the other temples as the Megalithic Temples of Malta.


There are plenty of silly memes about the British taking things. My view is the opposite: the British protected an enormous amount. If you want to imagine a world without that instinct to preserve, think of the images we saw when ISIS smashed its way through monuments in Iraq and Syria.


Sansuna, the giantess who carried the stones


Long before British scholars arrived, Gozitans already had their own explanation. A giantess named Sansuna built it. In the version I tell in the film, she lived nearby and raised the temple single-handed, carrying the stones on her head while cradling her child. Her only food, the story goes, was broad beans and honey. A remarkably strange diet, but each to their own.


Some versions say the child’s father was an ordinary mortal; others say she built it to worship the great mother, the earth goddess who gave life to the land. Stand in front of these megaliths, many of them taller than a man and far heavier than ten men could lift, and you begin to see why the myth endured. The first time I read about Ġgantija I pictured Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Polygonal blocks, square blocks, huge in size, and all of it before the Bronze Age, without metal tools.


Like the ones at Tarxien, these stones must have been moved across the land somehow. As I argue in my film on Malta’s cart ruts, I suspect those mysterious tracks are part of the answer.


Inside the place of giants


The layout is clear once you are inside. Heritage Malta describes two structures, each with its own entrance, enclosed within a common outer megalithic wall, each made up of apses flanking a central corridor. Seen from above, the plan is something like a clover leaf. The builders knew their stone: hard-wearing Coralline limestone for the main structure, softer Globigerina limestone kept for doorways, altars and decorative slabs. The southern temple is the larger, older and better preserved, and it rises to about six metres.


Two fragments of plaster with red ochre, now on display in the Interpretation Centre, suggest the inner walls were plastered and painted. Imagine walking in by torchlight with the shadows flickering across red-painted limestone. Visit Gozo adds that animal bones point to communal rituals and feasting, stone hearths to fire, and libation holes in the floor perhaps to liquid offerings. Many believe this was a fertility temple to a mother goddess, echoed in the full-figured statuettes found across Malta. The temples face south-east, and Ġgantija, like Mnajdra South, is said to face the equinox sunrise, though such alignments are still debated.


At the doorways I noticed holes cut on either side, roughly in line with one another. My guess is that a wooden post or a door once sat between them. Wood rots, so after five thousand years there is nothing left to prove it. Or perhaps Sansuna lived here, and this was simply her front door.


Victorian graffiti and the Grand Tour


Once uncovered, Ġgantija joined the Grand Tour. Malta was under the British Crown, a naval base and a stop for aristocrats, scholars and travellers following the footsteps of the ancients. Some thought the temples were the work of Phoenicians, or even survivors of Atlantis; the Victorians could hardly believe Stone Age farmers had done this, and so, in a way, they revived the myth of giants themselves.


Historic graffiti, initials and a date carved into a limestone block at Ġgantija, Gozo

They were not perfect visitors either. Look closely and you will find real graffiti carved into the stone: initials and dates from nineteenth-century tourists, including one I spotted from 1840. That is old enough to be history in its own right, but it is a reminder that people have always wanted to leave their mark.


Were the first builders the most advanced?


This is where I part company with the textbook, so treat what follows as my opinion. Across the ancient world the same paradox keeps appearing: the further back we look, the finer the craftsmanship seems to be. The precisely cut stones of Egypt and Peru, the stone vessels of the earliest Egyptian dynasties, the walls of Sacsayhuamán and Ollantaytambo that fit together like a puzzle. Here at Ġgantija, enormous blocks still stand together without mortar. The oldest layer is often the most impressive, and what follows can look like clumsy imitation.


Archaeologists usually explain this as skills, materials or motivation being lost over time. Could it also be that the first builders inherited knowledge from an even earlier age, one that slipped through the cracks of history? Some dare to suggest the first teachers came from the stars. Without a time machine we will never truly know, but I like to think something remarkable happened here.


Preserve it — and respect it


What is certain is that Ġgantija is being looked after properly now. The site has lightweight walkways to protect the floor, and the archaeological park opened in 2013. A security guard watched to make sure nobody touched the stones, and I liked that. Off camera, he told me his mother was from Brighton; he shook his head as much as I did at people who scratch their initials into monuments. I felt the same when a tourist carved his name into the Colosseum. People like that should be banned.


It cost €10 to get in, and it is worth every cent if it helps preserve this place. Bring children if it will spark their imaginations, but teach them respect for what they are seeing.


How to visit Ġgantija — tickets and opening hours


Tickets: the Ġgantija Archaeological Park and Ta’ Kola Windmill combo ticket costs €10 for adults (18+), €8 for youths (12–17), seniors (60+) and students, €6 for children aged 6–11, and is free for infants, per Heritage Malta. It is sold online and valid for 30 days from first use, and the 18th-century windmill is just around the corner.


Opening hours (Heritage Malta access statement): March to October, daily 10:00–18:00; November and December, daily 09:00–17:00; January and February, 09:00–17:00 but closed on Tuesdays. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing, and all Heritage Malta sites close on 1 January, Good Friday and 24, 25 and 31 December (opening hours page). A visit takes about an hour. Photographs are allowed, but not with tripods.


Getting there: the Gozo Channel ferry from Ċirkewwa to Mġarr takes about 25 minutes and runs daily. The standard foot-passenger fare is €4.65 (fares), and it is the ticket for the round trip, validated in Gozo. From Mġarr it is about a 16-minute drive to Xagħra, and the nearest bus stop is a couple of minutes from the entrance; plan routes on Malta Public Transport. Prices and hours were checked on 19 October 2026; confirm on the day.


Where to stay


Xagħra itself, Victoria and the bays at Marsalforn and Xlendi all make good bases on Gozo; compare them on Booking.com Gozo or find an apartment on Airbnb. Use the Malta hotels map below (Stay22 Hub, AID thewonderingenglishman) to weigh up Gozo against a base on the main island.



Guided tours to Gozo and Ġgantija


If you are based on Malta and would rather not drive, guided day trips to Gozo commonly include Ġgantija. Browse Malta and Gozo tours on Viator or Gozo tours on GetYourGuide, then read the Malta travel guide again before you lock the itinerary.



Getting around and staying connected


Gozo is easiest with your own wheels, which is how I did it. I book cars through Discover Cars, and if you want a driver waiting at Malta International, book a private transfer with GetTransfer. For data, my go-to eSIM is Saily (code Wondering for 15% off); Roamless is another good option (code WONDERING for 20% off).

Hiring a car for Gozo? Skip the rental desk's pricey excess waiver and get standalone excess cover from Cover4Rentals. Affiliate link: I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Roamless now has Unlimited plans here too: one eSIM, unlimited data, from 1 to 90 days.


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The Wondering Englishman has visited over 90 countries so far, and I'm slowly making my way around the world. Whether you believe Ġgantija was the work of a goddess, a giantess or simply determined people with faith and ingenuity, it remains one of the most powerful relics of human imagination. Stay curious, and keep questioning.



Photo credits: cover Ggantija Temples, Xaghra, Gozo by BoneA; Templo de Ġgantija, DD 25 by Diego Delso (delso.photo); Historisches Graffito im Ġgantija-Tempel by Kritzolina — all via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0.


Disclosure: some links on this page are affiliate links, so I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.


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Safe travels, The Wondering Englishman

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